Changeling Child
by Cyanide Lemons
Summary: "What a pitiful body. All those sinew and bones, that faint beating heart." The first one says, in a mockingly loving voice, its hand pressing into the glass until it passes it completely and touches the child. The small form of the baby stills, and the monitors attached stutter for a second before starting again. "I don't know how I will ever fit all of me in you."
1. Chapter 1

AN:

Trying my hand at a horror-esc story, since I'm wanting to write something a little creepy. I was noticing that the other Reborn fics I'm writing were loosing the humour so hopefully by shoving all my angst here I can fix that.

A little stuck with MOC and SSWT, so not sure when I'll be able to update them anyways.

* * *

The child dies.

The child dies on the birthing room floor from a lack of oxygen, gasping around it's own collapsed airways as doctors and nurses frantically try and find the problem.

The mother; all of twenty years of age, cries quietly to herself, half in and out of consciousness. She already knows. She can feel it like a stone lodged in her breast, nestled between her lungs. There's a nurse trying to soothe her but it does no good.

Half out of some desperate delusion, Sawada Nana, new mother to a dead boy, asks the other woman where her husband is. He hasn't been home in three months, hasn't written in two. She feels his absence all the more keenly in the chaos of the hospital, the lack of newborn cries hallowing out the spot where he should be standing besides her.

The nurse grimaces, trying to mop up the bleeding and keep her calm.

"I'm sure he'll be here soon." She soothes, mind half on the IV line and half on the torn flesh between the mother's legs. She glances around in slight panic, looking for the doctor, before pragmatism reasserts itself and she begins the sutures herself.

"My baby…He was going to name my baby…" The distraught woman mutters. Her tears slow slowly as exhaustion nips at her chest.

"Please…" She says one last time.

The crying of the mother soon fades, lulled into unconsciousness by the steady drip of her medication line, mind struggling still even as her body betrays her.

The nurse glances at her pale face and frowns.

"Poor woman, 28 hours of labour without a man beside her, and the baby won't even make it." She says before going back to work.

She doesn't notice as she's leaving the dark form breaking away from her shadow to cross the small room and linger by the bed.

The door closes, and one clawed finger rises up and presses against Sawada Nana's forehead.

A gaping maw opens and smiles.

* * *

They clear the lungs; insert a breathing tube as soon as possible. Inflate the small body with the oxygen it desperately needs. Some distant part of themselves knows it's too late, that the underdeveloped veins have already turned sluggish, that the misfiring brain has already started shutting down.

They try anyways.

Dark eyes watch from the corner of the room as the humans run about, locked on the still form in the glass incubator. Shadows rustle as another shade joins the first, larger and bulkier.

"The mother pays the price." The newcomer says, voice low and inaudible to human ears. In the inky darkness of the wispy forms weave together, swaying in time to an invisible beat.

"The mothers' always pay the price." The other says flatly.

"It is a small thing to pay. Heavy, but small. Knowledge always is." The larger form answers before oozing forward to press a sharp hand against warm glass.

The smaller form joins it, ignoring the human's obliviousness to their presence. It leans over the baby and peers into the glass like it will reveal some great secret. The flickering light bulb pulses in time with its breath.

"What a pitiful body. All those sinew and bones, that faint beating heart." The first one says, in a mockingly loving voice, its hand pressing into the glass until it passes it completely and touches the child. The small form of the baby stills, and the monitors attached stutter for a second before starting again.

"I don't know how I will ever fit all of me in you." 

* * *

They call it a miracle. Four hours after the doctors' have all but given up on the boy, he takes his first independent breath. The screaming wails are weak, raspy, but altogether properly formed.

There's celebration in the nurse's office, but it's half-hearted. There's an unease to the air as they check the baby over again. The lungs are weak, but no longer failing, and the choked brain tissue is mysteriously healthy.

The doctor blame's it on malfunctioning machines and leaves it at that, but the more superstitious of them watch the boy apprehensively.

In the mother's recovery room they bring the good news, only for the woman to start crying as soon as they do. Her great gasping breaths are part relief and part sorrow. Those who don't know better call them tears of joy.

* * *

Nana takes the boy home on the fifth day. She wasn't able to get in contact with her husband, and so had the sign the birth certificate by herself, using a little remembered fact about his family to name the baby.

Tsunayoshi is a quiet newborn, whose baby blue eye's quickly darkened into a shiny black, ever watchful. He likes grabbing onto the ends of her hair, not tugging but holding them in his small fist as if the texture is new and exciting for him.

He startles easily, bothered by loud noises and bright lights, but seems content otherwise to remain a blank mask.

He mostly sleeps.

Nana watch's him with fearful eyes, some part of her recognising him from a deep dream. There's a conversation playing in the back of her mind, over and over, only partly understandable. Some fever dream has plagued her with the knowledge, and now she can't look at her own son without nightmares looking back.

It is something she can put away though, something she can ignore and pretend away. Just like her missing husband, or the bloodstains on the carpet. She copes like she always does, by pushing it out of her mind.

Two months after his birth, as she puts him down in his crib at night, she finds herself humming the words she only half remembers.

"Come away, O, human child!

To the woods and waters wild

With a fairy hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than

you can understand."

Dark eyes watch her and she trails off, caught in a moment as if hanging from some thin thread. She freezes as her baby boy wiggles on the cradle bed, blinking shiny innocent eyes, as the shadows on the wall lengthen and lengthen.

Sharp teeth coalesce in front of her face, and it takes all she can to not shriek into the grinning face of a monster. The rumbling of a great beast fills the room, breathing hot on her face, before the shadow creature shrinks back, retreating back into her child once again.

She collapses like her strings are cut and raises one trembling hand to her face, eyes wide and mind far away.

In his crib the being that is Tsunayoshi sleeps peaceable.


	2. Chapter 2

Nana doesn't mean to be cruel. She doesn't usually have the capacity to be truly cruel, is too kind-hearted or timid to even think to be.

None the less she finds herself hesitating when it comes to her son. When he cries too long, when he doesn't cry at all. Something in her refuses to look at him some days. She isn't cruel, but she isn't truly kind either. She does her duty as a mother and tries to love the thing masquerading as human in Tsunayoshi's skin.

Tries to humanise something with no concept of human.

She spends more time then she thinks reasonable teaching him the rules of society, giving particular attention to those about ethnics and morality. She reads storybooks and fables, colourful pages with happy faces. She helps his clumsy hands trace different expressions and explains to him what they mean, what emotion feels like.

He learns fast, in both the specialised lessons she gives him and in the more broad range of skills. How to crawl, how to grab and pull, how to speak. His voice feels a little bit like she's listening to him from underwater, and it pulls at the strings in her mind until it aches. When this happens he will reach out and press his little hands to her face, as if trying to steal the pain away.

It is the only thing he has inherited from her, her inability to be cruel.

None the less, he is not quite kind either. Or as much as she can judge such things at such a young age.

She doesn't know what being hides in her son's skin, what god or demon touched his birth into the world, but she knows its there. It sleeps in his shadow, shows in his eyes and in his grin.

When he finally learns how to walk, it shows in his slow lumbering gait, as if he is used to a much larger, more fluid body. She thinks he will never be graceful, will always be a step out of sync, except perhaps when he lets what's underneath him loose a little.

So yes, she is not cruel, but sometimes she is not kind. Sometimes, she can't look her son in the face for fear of seeing a monster reflected in his eyes, and some days, she doesn't know who would be that monster.

When her husband finally comes back from whatever job kept him so occupied, it has been two years and she's gotten used to the tenseness between her and her son. If he notices, he doesn't mention it. He wails on about how Tsunayoshi– Tsuna, or Tsu-kun as she now calls him– is so quiet and unenthusiastic about being carried around. He bemoans his "seriously un-cute" little boy acting like his father is a stranger. As if the mixing of genes makes him so recognisable to a child who's never seen him.

Nana keeps her thoughts to herself, doesn't tell Iemitsu about the shadow under their son's skin, doesn't tell him about the sleepless nights when odd noises can be heard in the nursery.

Doesn't talk about how close Tsuna was to dying that day, how he probably did, and how they have no son but the one pretending at human.

She doesn't know whether it is kindness or cruelty to keep it from him.

* * *

Tsuna finds humans fascinating, on a metaphoric level. Interesting beings, a bit too anchored in reality for his own comfort, but unique and interesting all the same.

The things he learns in the early years could keep him entertained for centuries, but they age so quickly that by the time he feels like he has the basics of humanity, of being human, he is already expected to know it all naturally. Learning to breathe and to blink and to act like he belongs takes up so much of his limited brain power in this small form that other things, like school and academics, get pushed to the backburner.

He'd much rather explore all there is to this very messy, physical mode of being, then he would to sitting listening to humanities limited understanding of the world.

His mother has been a gem in that aspect. Never pushing when his bad grades come back, always ready to explain a tricky human custom, making excuses to the neighbours when he forgets or doesn't bother.

He get's himself something of a bad rep. He doesn't mind all that much, in fact, its practically a requisite for beings in his position to stand out in the crowd, negatively or not, so he doesn't do anything to persuade anyone differently.

Once or twice he slips up of course, feels his larger self unfold out of his physical shell. Once, to scare off a group of older boys when they start after a stray cat that he favours. Again in surprise when he registers pain for the first time, courtesy of a skinned knee.

For the most part though he is content to ignore the larger part of himself. To indulge himself in the physical reality and to live just like these messy, living, beings.

The fire comes as a surprise.

* * *

He is aware, of course, of the unique warmth that he can almost see in the other humans. He chalked it up to whatever the humans call a soul, not really paying all that much attention because he couldn't see it in himself. It made sense to him to not have the thing that made humans so temporary, so mortal.

As it turns out, whatever the warmth is, it doesn't leave with death. It is not some mystical essence of a human being.

It is very much a physical manifestation, and tied with the body. Such as the body he inhabits.

He finds this in his sleep, when he lets his limited body rest so that his larger self can stretch outwards a little, shaking off metaphorical cramps. His mother has caught him at this a few times, and it is a good thing that her price for calling them includes an oath of secrecy or he would be more worried.

But the price of a mother is knowledge, and secrecy, and sanity. So she knows and he knows, and they don't speak of it.

But that night as he let's his body slump into slumber, as he hovers over his human body, he takes a good look for the first time outside of the limited point of view of his mortal eyes.

The body is small, still in the beginning stages of youth, and with his face slack with sleep he looks almost innocent. His hair, slowly darkening as the years go by and his body adapts to itself, fans out in tuffs. It looks a little like feathers that have been blow-dried.

Through his dark eyes the physical melts away, and the metaphysical reveals itself. The dark lines marking the body as a host, the chalky shell of a dead soul wrapping around the blown glass heart, the shifting colours showcasing all that he is.

And there, nestled near his hairline, is a soft orange shimmer.


	3. Chapter 3

Tsuna sits on his bed when he wakes up and looks at his small hands. Now that he knows its there, the fire is all he can think about. He has so many questions.

What is it? Why does he have it? What's with the different colours? Do all humans have it? How has none of his kin found about it in all the ages they have taken human form?

He feels the roof of his mouth tingle, his jaw ache with his true forms restlessly moving in his body. His jaw dislocates as his teeth drop and he has to force himself to yawn so it all clicks back into place. Behind him his shadow twists into knots and he has to force himself down, compress himself into a three dimensional space once again.

It's the one draw back to a naturally grown body, as it matures around him it also takes in his own nature. Just enough that it's hard sometimes keeping it hidden, especially as large as he is and as small as this body is.

No doubt the changes will only become more evident as the years go by. Some day he will only remain as he is, and not as the body was once meant to be. Some day he will disperse back into shadow and the cycle will repeat. For now though it only becomes a problem when he is feeling out of balanced.

For example, a previously unknown human magic, accessible by those living in their human shells. And more importantly, accessible to him.

He has to force the grin off his face, no doubt showing too much teeth, at the idea of it.

He loves humans. Oh how he wishes he could crack them open and sip all their secrets.

* * *

Nana is making supper when the lights flicker. Her hands still, and a shiver crawl's into her spine and makes itself at home. She gently puts her spoon down and grabs onto the counter.

A claw presses gently on her neck, right where her hair ends. She doesn't turn around.

"Is he all you wished for?" The shadow asks. She presses her lips into a thin line and carefully settles her shoulders.

"He is my son." She says simply.

The tales always speak of the foolishness of humans offending those more powerful then them, and although she has no idea what exactly is haunting her family she understands enough to know that some stories are routed in truth.

A chuckle is pressed against her back.

"He is much more then that." The claw retracts. "But I am glad you do not regret your deal. Because there are no room for regrets in a contract such as ours."

The chill retreats from the room and she takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She blinks away the wetness in her eyes and stumbles back until she can slump herself into a chair.

The front door bangs open and she hears Tsuna stumbling in.

"I'm home!" His voice theses days is a lot more normal sounding, it almost never gives her a headache anymore. She tries to smiles and mostly succeeds.

Tomorrow she promises herself to go to the library and research folk tales. She has tried in the past to figure out what exactly she is living with, what creature lives in her son's skin, but she's never found anything that matches its description.

For today, she smiles at her son and lets her worries go.

* * *

They live in the shadows between the layers of the world, eternal and unchanging. They drag themselves up through the cracks in reality and watch those too routed in reality to see them. Sometimes, when the time is right and things line up properly, they speak into the sleeping minds of humans and write a contract with wishes and blood.

They wish mostly for the chance to change themselves, like they can't on their own in their internal forms. They crave a need to expand and evolve and the best way to do that is to crawl into a physical form and experience it for themselves.

They have names in every culture and they take their price from all those who call upon them. The Fae, Fox wives, The Unseen, Demons. Those who take on human form through selfish means. Changelings.

They take their price, they take their blood, and nothing can stop them.

* * *

Friends aren't an alien concept to Tsuna, although human friendship is very different from what he is used to. In the shadows there is no boundary from who you are and who you appear to be, no secrets when the very being of you is exposed to everyone else.

He has had companions, and beings so close to him they might have well been a part of him, but he hasn't had the awkward, stumbling courtship of a human friendship.

He wants one though. Desperately. He wants to know what the buzz is all about, wants to taste this integral part of humanity.

This turns out to be slightly difficult, considering he has very little in social grace, and very much in bad reputation. Even without his bad grades and horrible athletics he very much doubts it would be easy. He has no idea where to start in the first place, still struggles with learning social cues and human logic. He learns fast, but learning still doesn't trump the instinctual knowledge gathered over thousands of years in a collected genome.

He is physically ten when he first attempts to befriend another living soul.

He is working himself up to a human but starts small, with the neighbour cat. He has grown fond of it, but from a distance, recognising in it a distinct lack of desire to be approached. Quite a few have gotten deep scratches trying to do otherwise.

Food, however, goes a long way.

The first time is a failure, but he has done his research and is patient. He leaves the food where it is and retreats, keeping an eye out but content to stay silent and still. The mangy animal creeps closer slowly, looking for all purposes as if its cautious steps are accidental.

It grows confident when he doesn't come closer, and eats fast, large bites of flashing teeth. It leaves right after and he watches it go.

This repeats for a few days, before one day he gets there and the cat is already sitting in the spot he leaves the food. It watches him with a wary eye, tense shoulders, but it doesn't retreat when he cautiously crouches down and sets up the canned meat and water. It doesn't even flinch back from his black eyes and twisting shadow.

As one predator to the next they sit side by side, not touching, but content for once to know they are not alone.

As he will soon learn, cats and humans are not that different.

His mother doesn't seem all that enthused with the patchy animal when a few months later he comes home with it in his arms, but she helps him set up a veterinary visit.

This ends up being her first reaction to his first human friend as well.


	4. Chapter 4

Tsuna tries to play with the fire just under his human skin, and comes across a setback. The orange flames, beautiful and clear when not being used, get muddy and sluggish whenever he pokes at them. At first he thinks its because he doesn't actually know what he wants to do with them, a lot of magic gets weaker without intent. But the more he tries the more he starts to understand that there's probably something more to it.

It seems there's something off about his fire. Something that he can only guess to be caused by his larger self. The orange flames are in tuned with the human body, and not the larger self attached to it.

He thinks, if he can get the fire to accept him as an owner then he might have more luck, but for now he has to contend with it being just out of his reach.

* * *

He's sitting in a park, frustrated by the lack of progress but determined all the same, when he notices a boy on the other side of the playground. He has dark hair and a darker expression, and he's watching Tsuna like he want's to crack him open and eat him.

Tsuna startles.

The boy, noticing this, stalks closer. He ends up standing right in front of him, dark eyes intent on Tsuna's, and a staring contest starts. Tsuna is mostly just confused, and trying to remember if there's a social cue his mother would try and make him use in this scenario and he just missed it, or if this is out of the norm even for humans.

"Fight me." The boy says.

Tsuna cocks his head to the side, slides a little of his larger self out to look at the boy through darker eyes, cocks his head to the other side when he sees only a human boy with both set of eyes and opens his mouth.

"Why?" He asks confusedly. The other boy huffs.

"You're not like theses other herbivores. Fight me." He says, thrusting out a fist.

Tsuna blinks a few times, looking around and seeing only other humans on the playground. He supposes, for those of his kind, humans would be herbivores, but since the boy is also only human he is quite confused.

"Ok?" He says slowly. He doesn't really know how to fight in this body, but it sounds like a skill he should learn.

As soon as he gives his assent he has to lean back to dodge a fist. His eyes widen.

"Now?" He asks incredulously. More importantly, even he knows not to start a fight on the playground where multiple sets of parents can step in. Better bring this somewhere a little quieter.

The other boy doesn't seem to hear.

Tsuna slides off his bench. He bounces a few times, shifts out of the way of a strike, and smiles at the other boy.

"Betcha can't catch me." He says, winking, and takes off.

The other boy catches up to him a few blocks away, in an empty schoolyard. Dark eyes narrow at Tsuna and the boy doesn't even pause when Tsuna stops, sliding straight from a run to a charge.

Tsuna slides back from a tightly curled fist, shifts slightly to avoid the follow up, and starts a detailed study. The other boy shifts his weight slightly before striking, using his whole body to give his fist more strength.

His movement suggest he would be even faster with something in his hands, a baton or club maybe, although knives would be an option if he also didn't seem a little soft for it.

No doubt the boy has always been the strongest in his little world. A true prodigy in his chosen field. Which would explain why he would come up to a random child in the playground and ask a fight with no other explanation.

Tsuna bends his knees, avoids a sideswipe, and grins at the boy's narrowed look of frustration. He skips away again and doesn't even bother bringing his arms up. A faint growl comes from him and Tsuna has to stop himself from laughing.

This goes on for a little more, a little dance of attack and dodge, before Tsuna slows his retreat and grins back at the boy for real this time. His teeth itch, and he doesn't doubt the sharpness of them surprises him. Behind him, his shadow stretches.

Tsuna strikes back. Wide eyes shift back, the other boy dodging the copied punch smoothly. Tsuna presses forward, using the boy's own attacks against him.

He always was a fast learner, and it's relatively easy to mirror the boy's own moves when he doesn't have any of his own to get caught up on.

Now it's just a question on who can keep it up the longest. The prodigy or the copy cat.

Tsuna lies panting on the ground, aching body heaving in time with his exhausted breaths. Next to him the odd boy collapses too, and for a minute they are mirror images. Finally, Tsuna reaches into his oversized pockets for a second, ruffling around the odds and ends that live there, and pulls out a granola bar. He breaks it in two.

"Here." He thrusts out one piece; not pulling away until the other boy slowly reaches up and takes it.

There's silence for a while until.

"…Hibari Kyoya." The boy says. Tsuna blinks.

"Ah. Um. Sawada Tsunayoshi?" He responds hesitantly.

And that's that.

* * *

Or at least it is for a few days. Hibari comes back, usually with a request for a fight. They end up mostly evenly matched, since Tsuna really only copies the other boy. A shadow. They rarely talk, and even after the matches they rarely stick around for very long. The other boy seems have a distinct dislike for other people, and appears to be mostly just tolerating Tsuna.

No doubt if Tsuna was more concerned about human matters, this would bother him. It certainly seems to bother the other humans that surround them. But Tsuna is used to unchanging personalities, doesn't even bother and try to make the other boy open up more.

Instead Tsuna starts bringing snacks and water with him on his evening adventures, in case the other boy shows up. A few times the food even gets him an approving nod. For the most part this seems to be an ideal set up. He almost thinks he's made his first human friend.

Hibari certainly acts rather a lot like Kumori, his cat.

And then one day, things change.

* * *

Dark tendrils of shadow burst out of Tsuna's back, his larger self purposefully manifesting a lesser version of itself behind his human body. His eyes and gums itch, and no doubt the copper taste in his mouth is blood. He can feel the rot start on his hands and feet, and doesn't even bother the calcification process on the back of them.

White bone creeps up his arms. A few feet from him there's the slumped form of a small boy, bleeding out slowly.

He stares at the blood covered hands of the men in from of him and howls.


	5. Chapter 5

It's a relatively normal day for Tsuna, playing high stakes tag with Hibari before once again retreating to the abandoned schoolyard to end the evening with sparring. Tsuna figures that part of the evening is going to start getting more difficult, since the other boy has started making noises about finding a suitable weapon now that his birthday is coming up, but for now they make do with what they have.

Tsuna himself figures he should probably think about finding his own style soon, since he won't be able to copy Hibari with a weapon.

For now though, both of them run about the small residential area, getting in the way of the evening shoppers or mothers with small children. A few times they end ducking into alleys or side streets.

"Going have to do better then that!" Tsuna crows, ducking out of the way of the other boy's fingers, using one hand to swing into another street. He can practically feel Hibari's frustration as he doesn't turn in time and has to double back.

"Hey! Kid!" A voice yells from in front of him, and Tsuna skids a few feet trying to slow down. Hibari slams into him from behind and they both go sprawling.

There's the whisper of cloth and a pair of expensive shoes move into view. Tsuna blinks his eyes a few times, groaning, and pushes the other boy off of him. Hibari growls.

In front of them are three men, dressed in suits and bland smiles, and suddenly the air of the small alley feels almost oppressive. Despite the expensive suits they all look like they are slightly sick, or haven't had a decent meal in a long time. Coupled with their vaguely predatory looks it makes for an intimidating look.

"Yes?" He asks uncertainty. The man closest to him smiles a sick smile, insincere and greedy and addresses the men besides him.

"Well well, aren't we lucky boys? Looks like the Sawada's spawn ran right into our hands." The man says, and Tsuna flinches and stumbles back.

A grunt from behind him has him turning in panic, only to see Hibari being yanked up by another man in a suit. The other boy struggles in the grip, but the larger man is able to keep his grip with relative ease.

"Now now, no need to run huh? We just want a little chat. Wouldn't want your little friend here to get hurt would we?" The first man says, one of the others laughing lowly in response.

Tsuna can feel his heart beat in time with the pulsing in his gums. He's confused, disorientated. He can see the whites in Hibari's eyes, sees the desperate way he claws at the mans arms, and knows before the other boy moves exactly what's going to happen.

The next series of events happen so fast, Tsuna, frozen as he is, just stares as they enfold.

"Fuck!" Hibari falls with a thump as the man holding him jerks back, arm bleeding from the bite wound. The boy stumbles towards Tsuna, who jerks a little in his spot, and then there's a deafening sound that cracks pass Tsuna's ears.

There's silence for a few seconds, muffles curses from behind him, but Tsuna can only hear the high pitch whining that's escaping from his friend.

Blood is spreading around a small hole in his side, and wide eyes hit wide eyes as Hibari goes down. Tsuna feels his heart stop.

"Fucking kid, he actually bit me."

"What the fuck Jack, do you know how much we're going to have to smooth things over with the boss if you kill some random civie?"

"Goddamn, at least the other one is still alive. Hey kid, if you don't want to end up like your friend there, you better listen to us you understand?"

There's voices coming from around him, but Tsuna can't hear them. His blood has stopped, there's no breath in his lungs. There's only the picture of Hibari falling slowly, blood blooming around his small body.

"Hey! Brat!" A hand clamps down on his shoulder, and the shadows explode.

* * *

The being that is called Tsuna stretches dark limbs and prowls closer. The smell of rot is heavy on the air, and putrid flesh peels back to show bone as the small form, puppeted by a large shadow, slowly reverts into its true form.

"WHA-WHAT THE FUCK!" One of the men screams. Tsuna turns liquefied eyes his way and with one sweep of an arm slams him into the concrete wall. It shatters and the man slumps down, coughing blood.

Bullets fire and hit his rotting flesh, disappearing only to reappear bursting out of the gunners own shadow. A gurgle as the lead hits bone and teeth and then another dead man litters the ground. Somewhere deep inside of Tsuna he notices that the bullets were wrapped in red flames.

Another tries to run, but a spear of inky shadow pierces his left knee and he goes down howling. As soon as he falls his own shadow rises up and chokes him. The body kicks out a few times before stilling.

Bones crunch as Tsuna's human body twists and white bone forms along his limbs. His neck snaps back and his jaw drops down as the razor teeth grow into long canine pincers.

A growl grows in his still chest, and smoke wisps out of his gaping maw. In front of him the shocked face of the last man slowly morphs into one of abject fear. He lifts his hands up and scrambles back. A wall of shadow stops him before he can get far and he trips down, crying.

He advances slowly towards him with one clawed hand, and lifts him up high. Blubbering can be heard, a grating sound that barely flits across Tsuna's dead eardrums.

Tsuna smiles and with his other hand, stabs right into his chest and pulls out the heart. His claws slip through his ribs like butter, and sever the beating organ with minimal fuss from the surrounding flesh.

A gasping wheeze is the only other sound the man can make before the brain catches up with the rest of the body, and dies.

The body goes sliding down and he turns away, ignoring the gore and viscera that paints the alley to kneel down by his still warm friend.

The bleeding has slowed, and breath is all but non-existant, but there is life still.

Shadows lift up Hibari's head and bring the small form closer, as the hand with still bleeding heart moves closer.

Tsuna opens the other boy's mouth and feeds him a chunk.


	6. Chapter 6

Nana is reading a book she got at the library about foreign folk tales when her son comes home carrying what looks like a dead body. There's blood splattered all over him, and the only thing saving her floors from a torrent of it is that its already either congealed or dried.

She screams.

A shadow hand reaches up and covers her mouth, muffling her. Tsuna smiles at her tiredly and hefts his burden higher.

"Shhhh." He says. "He's sleeping."

He doesn't look like he's sleeping, looks very much dead in fact, but Nana hesitantly nods anyways. Tsuna wanders farther into the house and she follows him, hands hovering over her mouth.

"What—What happened?" She asks. She's terrified, of her son, for her son, for the body he's lugging around like it doesn't even mean anything.

He sets the body gently down on the couch and turns towards her.

"They shot him. We were playing and they shot him." He says. There's something dark and dead in his expression. Something that speaks more towards the monster then the boy in him.

Her eyes flicker to the body on her sofa and something hard settles itself into her gut.

"Is he…?" She asks finally, hands hovering over the crumpled figure. Tsuna nods.

"He'll get better. Like I got better, but without a shadow inside. He's too old to be a host. It will change him, but he'll still be him." He says.

She turns wide eyes his way. He smiles at her.

"We couldn't make me better when this body was a baby without a shadow because there wasn't anything to make better. If it was a few years older…"He shrugs.

She swallows the grief and turns her horrified eyes back to the corpse in her house.

"Why? I mean, who…" She makes a frustrated noise. "You said he was shot?"

Tsuna nods, sitting down besides what she assumes to be his friend. He takes the other boy's hand in his and little wisps of shadow cling to both of them.

"They knew who I was. They called me 'Sawada's spawn'. They cornered us in an alley and Hibari got grabbed. One of them got twitchy when he struggled." He says slowly.

She blinks wet eyes and leans against the sofa. Her chest and throat hurt, like there's something sharp spearing her from the inside. But she has to know.

"How did… How did you get away?" She asks cautiously. Her eyes are pinned to his, and she can see the exact moment the monster rises to the surface.

His smile is the only answer he needs. In the shadows behind him she swears she can see teeth.

* * *

Nana sits across from the body and drinks her tea, waiting for movement. She wonders if she will have to explain to the police why there's the body of a dead boy in her house if whatever magic Tsuna weaves fails.

It takes two hours, but the body does awake eventually. With a great gasp, jerking upright as if pulled by some invisible force, dead flesh eventually darkens back into health.

Nana squeaks a little as wide eyes catch hers, but she's able to keep her composure a bit better this time and only smiles wetly at his confused expression. She leans forward to pour another cup of tea and places it near his side of the table.

The boy wets his lips, as if chasing a lingering taste, and turns his attention unnervingly towards where Tsuna is skulking.

"What did you do?" He asks, pushing his body up only to collapse backwards with a thump. Tsuna jerks forward to help him back up. His hands hover after they succeed in propping the boy up, arcs of what look like smoke jumping between them.

Wide eyes watch the jumping shadows in numb shock.

Nana settles herself farther into her chair, feeling a little bit like she is intruding. Something inside her refuses to leave, to lose sight of her son who, even if he is a false one, almost left her again. She feels like she is back in the birthing room crying out for a blue tinged baby.

"It hurts." The boy says. He doesn't sound as if he's in pain, but Nana jerks forward instinctively anyways.

"The pain will pass." Tsuna says, not moving away from the other boy's fascinated look. He presses one charged hand to the boys arm and the shadows burst around the point of contact.

Nana shivers.

"You said there would be changes?" She asks. Tsuna sends her a look but doesn't pull away.

"The most common symptom is an increase in hunger. Itching teeth, mood swings. Increase in aggression or other instincts. An urge to eat the hearts of beaten opponents." He replies. She swallows.

Her boy, her monster of a boy, instead of letting a friend die made him a monster too. Although really, who is the monster, the men who killed him, or the boy who ate their hearts?

* * *

The detective quietly covers his mouth and thanks his luck that he hasn't had lunch yet. He has a feeling that with the amount of blood and gore in the alleyway he won't be having lunch for a long, long time.

"Oh god." One of the younger officers says, green in the face. The detective nods sympathetically. They're just lucky they were able to cordon off the place early enough that not too many civilians saw before it was called in. Even a few more hours and the stench itself would have people come looking.

Body parts are strewn about, and there's part of a man's jaw just to the left of them, but it's the quieter deaths that make it look so eerie.

"Drowned." Says the medical officer, kneeling by one of the more intact bodies. The detective raises his eyebrows and whistles.

"In this weather? There's no water for at least ten kilometers." He says, hands in his pocket.

The doctor makes a noise of assent and checks the body's elasticity one more time.

"I'll have to do more tests in the lab, but all symptoms so far point to a drowning instead of suffocation. See how bloated the body is?" She points the bulging fingers and eyes.

He nods thoughtfully, turns his eyes to the body missing a heart, to the one who appears to have been shot by his own gun, the one dead from impact with a broken wall, and sighs.

"Gonna have to get an priest up here for a cleansing." He mumbles.

"Thought you weren't superstitious?" His partner laughs quietly.

"Look at this. You got any other explanation for this?" He says, waving his hand to indicate the drag marks that fade off to nothing, the claw marks in brick, the illogically dead men in suits.

His partner grimaces.

"Good point."

"I mean, one dead foreign man is one thing, even if he is missing a heart. But how do you take down four of them in such fucked up ways?" He complains.

"Armed too." His partner points out, crouching down to prod at a discarded gun with one gloved hand.

"Think they're Yakuza?" He asks, waving for the officer with the camera to come over.

The detective snorts.

"These guys? Too foreign for Yakuza. I'd say mafia or cartel."

* * *

/

AN: You guys should send me ideas for what sort of supernatural shenanigans Tsuna should get up to now that he has another non-human friend. Also, the cannibalism will show up a bit more in latter chapters, so warning for that.


	7. Chapter 7

AN: A little late because school is getting in the way. Don't know when I will be able to update SSWT and MOC, I've kinda hit a roadblock plot wise.

/

* * *

There's a lot to ask, Tsuna knows. A lot that needs to be said. Hibari sits with a scowl on his lips and words tumbling in his brain and Tsuna knows, deeply, that he should explain.

The problem is he doesn't really have the words.

Tsuna fidgets away from Hibari's intense stare and looks longingly towards where his mother is getting out cleaning supplies. Nana has always had the ability to explain Tsuna's weirdness without making it seem like she's crazy.

Tsuna, on the other hand, can't sugarcoat his words because he doesn't know how. It requires a better understanding of humanity then he has.

"What." Hibari finally snaps out. Tsuna jumps.

"Um. Well. What do you remember?" He asks, stalling for time.

Hibari grunts, slumping down into the couch. He hasn't yet tried standing, and Tsuna just knows that his trembling limbs are pissing him off the most.

"We were weak. Should have anticipated they would have a weapon." Hibari says.

Tsuna nods, ruefully thinking that of course that's what Hibari would concentrate on.

"We'll get stronger. You, at least, are already stronger." He says.

Hibari glares at him, and hunches further down. With the blood still sticking to his skin he looks more like Tsuna should, if you follow the stories.

"You did something." Hibari says. Tsuna nods again.

"The heart of a human has some real restorative properties, if you know how to use it. You were too far gone to use anything less." He says, shadow twisting restlessly. Hibari eyes it.

"I was dead." He says, flatly.

"So was I, when I changed." Tsuna responds. "Um, right after I was born I mean. Though it's different, since I wasn't resurrected so much as I inhabited the already dead body of –" and here waves to his body to indicate his current host.

It's a horrible explanation, but Hibari doesn't ask any questions about it. Instead, his eyes narrow and he straightens some so he can lean forward.

"What did you make me?" He says, intent. Tsuna smiles.

"The modern lingo would call you a zombie. Or, in some cultures, a vampire. Those descriptions don't quite fit anymore, of course, as you are not a mindless corpse nor do you burn in the sun." He says, letting a little tendril of shadow rise behind him.

"And you're not like me, as a Changeling. You are still human, mostly. Just more."

* * *

Spark-At-Dawn slips back into the shadows and let's out a laugh.

"Kid's certainly not wasting any time." They say, blue crystal and razor wire core pulsing in mirth. Deep-Water swims by and rubs a greeting along their wispy exterior.

"At least he chose well. Didn't you possess one of the human's ancestors, Whispering-Dark?" They say to another passing dark current. Tinkling laughter reverberates through the shadows.

Whispering-Dark grins teeth of broken mirrors and nods one great lumbering head. The other head turns slowly to watch Deep-Water as they do shark circles around the group.

"Long ago." They agree.

Spark-At-Dawn hums, glass chest vibrating with the sound of thunder. Long, sharp arms rise to tap a crooked mouth.

"Strange to find even one Changeling born, I wonder if he will end up finding others."

* * *

Hibari goes home. They clean up the blood, Tsuna has to scrub extremely hard to get the tacky substance out of his hair. He ends up having to give himself a little manicure, since it refuses to come out of his nails.

Tsuna sits down with his still shaken mother and props his head on his hands. She's chugging tea like it's the last thing she will ever do.

"So." He says, after the silence has gone on long enough. "Know any reason why men in suits would want me dead?"

Nana puts her cup down and sighs. She rubs the her face tiredly and shakes her head.

"Unless they knew what you are, which doesn't seem likely…" She murmurs. Tsuna hums.

"No, it wouldn't be that. They weren't prepared for the shadows at all. And they called me Sawada's spawn, as if my parentage mattered." He muses.

He gently takes her hand, and nudges the cup out of it so that he can pour her another cup.

"I can't see anyone going after you, unless there's something big you've been hiding. Which means…" He trails off.

"Your father." She finishes grimly. The stress lines around her eyes tighten.

"He is gone a lot." He says wryly. She laughs humourlessly.

"Maybe you should call him and say someone suspicious said something." He says, getting up to get more hot water.

"And when he asks where this suspicious person is?" Nana asks, watching him.

Tsuna hums, turning around and widening his eyes.

"Well I ran away as soon as I could, they were really scaaary." He says, a tone of fright in his voice. Combined with watery eyes he really does look like a scared little kid.

Nana shakes her head ruefully. Something in her is uneasy with lying to her husband, even if she has been doing it for years. But he has a right to know that someone's been threatening them, at least.

Even if, with Tsuna here, she just can't scrounge up the fear. Tsuna's always been the most dangerous thing in the house, and today has just nailed that home even more.

You can't kill something that is already dead, after all.

* * *

"So," The detective says, "What have we got?"

The medical examiner shoves her hands into her pockets and sighs.

"I don't know what to tell you, Satoshi-san, it looks like a classic drowning." She says.

Satoshi Daichi hums, sharing a wry glance with his partner who sighs.

"I'm telling you, it's not a ghost." Akiyama Itsuki says, edging away from his playful superior.

"Ah, but I'm telling you, what else could it have been?" Satoshi says, mockingly shivering.

"Well if the drowning has you talking about ghost, the evisceration of the heart should have you crying about it." Saito Amane says, tapping her chart.

The two men turn towards her, straightening and wiping their joking expressions off. She quirks a brow.

"The markings on the ribs and surrounding tissue aren't from knife wounds, but rather claw markings. Close to those of a bear. And the bruise on the throat also has unnatural depressions, not seen with human hands." She says, handing the files over.

Satoshi flips through them and frowns.

"That is disturbing. Think we have cultists on our hands?" He asks, to which the two others shrug.

"Whoever, or whatever, did this must have had a lot of strength behind their blows." Akiyama says, peering over the taller man's shoulder. "Look how much damage there is to the one who got smacked into the wall. His whole torso looks like it's been pulverised."

Satoshi hums.

"Anything off the dna samples yet?" He asks, still flipping through the charts.

"We got four matches towards known mafia members, low tier, and one unknown. Considering the amount of blood from the unknown it would seem one of the attackers died at the scene and then was later moved. No matches yet." Akiyama says.

Satoshi slams the files shut and nods.

"Well at least it's a starting point. I want you all looking for a match to that sample. Saito-san, if you could make sure that the bodies are kept in a out of the way place, that would be great. The last thing we need is the mafia finding out and demanding them before we can get all the information we need out of them." He says, to which the two nod.

"Yukimura-san! Start canvasing the surrounding streets and see if you can find some witness." He yells towards a passing officer. Yukimura Kasumi yells back.

"Aye Aye sir!" She snaps, rounding a corner.

He shakes his head.

"Well, it's a start."


	8. Chapter 8

Iemitsu gets the call while dealing with some pesky upstarts from Naples. Or more accurately, his ringtone gets the call and he doesn't check the recording until hours have past. The tiny voice of his wife makes him pause as he's walking the halls later that night, on his way back from clean up.

"Iemitsu? Hello dear, I'm just calling because some odd things have been happening and I thought you should know. I'm sure it's nothing, but there has been some strange people asking after you and Tsuna lately. Maybe from your work? Thought you should know. Love you." The click of the dial tone is loud in the empty hall and he frowns down at the phone.

It probably is nothing. He knows no one should even know that he has family, not to mention where they live. That was why he kept his distance; harder to link to something that there was no evidence for. The only ones who have that sort of information are the Ninth and his guardians.

So unless someone has been able get one over some of the most dangerous men in the world, there's no way for anyone to know where his family lives.

But he also doesn't like the idea of strange people asking after him. That's the kind of thing that bites him in the ass later.

He unlocks his phone again and calls his second in command. He might not be able to afford leaving and checking on his family, but he has cute little minions to do that for him.

* * *

The second group of people Tsuna kills he does so deliberately. He picks his targets carefully, using what he knows of morality from his mother. It takes weeks to find the perfect mix of irredeemable criminal and unlikely to be missed. He doesn't bring Hibari, partly because his control is still out of whack and partly because even Tsuna realises it would be in bad taste.

So here he is, loitering out a slightly rundown unmarked building waiting for his literal prey to walk out. It's getting dark, and normally he would already be at home if just for his mother's sake, but needs must.

He's already bursting at the seams of his physical body, ribs blossoming from his back like white spider legs, using the bone to cling to the brick wall above the door. He keeps still with a dark patience; intent on the heartbeat he can feel through the walls. He licks chapped lips and lets his focus narrow down.

It takes barely any thought to extend one white limb and tap at the door.

Footsteps pause before steady steps head his way. There's the acid stink of cheap cologne and old blood, and he stares hungrily at the greasy head that peers out.

The first one tastes like pickles eel; head bitten clean off at the first strike. He lets himself pause to savour the taste before wandering in. The other heartbeats inside stir, realising possibly that something is wrong.

They're slow though, lacking in survival instincts to warn them of the coming danger.

The second one he makes sure to conserve the head, instead going for chest stab to pop out the heart.

He tastes like candied plums. Tsuna crunches through tough tissue and slurps him down.

By now, the rest are alerted to their plight. Tsuna can hear shouting, guns going off. He lets the bone cover himself completely, not so much for protection as for the metaphorical armour. Takes less concentration that way. He watches the men flee in terror and gives them a couple seconds head start before following. One by one he picks them off. A liver here, a lung there. Limbs like flag posts to mark his progress.

Everpresent, his shadow large and looming behind him.

It doesn't take much longer after that to be done with his meal.

* * *

Tsuna breaks into Hibari's house at 3am. It's something he's gotten used to lately, as he tries to teach the other boy about the shadows. Tonight though, he climbs in through the window with a dark sac over his shoulder that drips slowly down his back.

As soon as he's through the window Hibari is wide a wake, slightly luminescent eyes opening in the dark. Tsuna smiles. The other boy scowls at him in response.

"Wakey wakey eggs and bakey." He sings, slightly blood drunk. Hibari grunts and sits up, looking for all points and purposes as if he's been awake for hours now.

"I got you a present." Tsuna continues when the other boy just continues to stare at him, letting the sac go to spill out across the shinning floor.

Blood oozes out, along with a purple flushed heart and a decapitated head. It rolls slowly until the slightly eyes stare into Hibari's.

His pupils dilate, and Tsuna pats himself on the back for a good hunt. Still, the other boy, despite practically vibrating with want, stays rooted to the bed. His skin vacillates between flushed and pale, and his expression somewhere between horror and want.

"They were trespassing on your territory. Drug runners out in the industrial district. All of them had warrants for arrests and a long history of crime." He soothes, knowing as he does that that is no real excuse. There is no real way to judge one human above another, all death is equal. But some lies are more palatable then others. And although this will eventually require some very heavy fixing, it is still a lot better then bringing the boy with him for the kill. He needs the meat, but he doesn't need the guilt.

It's a good thing they wont have to do this much more. A few more feedings and the boy should have the control to survive off of human food. Soon, he'll even be able to fight without ripping his opponents throat out.

Finally Hibari snaps, surging over the bed with teeth bared. He goes for the heart first, as he should, and consumes that with three large bites. His jaw unhinges like a snake, but his teeth are canine. Tsuna has never really understood where vampire fangs came into the picture for the folk tales.

With blood slicking his hands Hibari then turns his attention to the head. Sharp nails easily pierce bone, and he cracks it open to get to the insides. Tsuna can't help but thing of the stories of far off cannibals. Of the insanity that seeps into those who eat their kins flesh.

It's a good thing that, as something that is no longer completely human, Hibari can't get human diseases. Including those passed from brain to brain.

Tsuna settles on the windowsill and keeps watch over his friend. In the morning he'll have to clean the blood, set the other boy down and talk him through the jitters, but for now he can appreciate company in inhumanity.


	9. Chapter 9

Days pass, and Nana slowly resigns herself to being the mother of not one, but two monster boys. She isn't sure where Hibari's parents are, or what they do, but the boy tags after Tsuna like a reluctant shadow.

A few times she thinks to ask him, but the look in his eyes whenever family is mentioned stops her.

Strangely, even though Tsuna confesses that Hibari's brand of monster is more unstable and dangerous than his, she rather finds it easy to have him in the house. Hibari, unlike Tsuna, is a very human monster, all his traits are those you find in people, just enhanced and distorted.

He's aggressive, but she's used to that from her days as a waitress. He's hungry, but so are all growing children. If he's obsessed with rules, well, that's why they have laws.

Tsuna on the other hand is most emphatically not human-shaped, even when he looks the most human. All the things that make him up are other, and it is only as he grows that she starts to see the seed of humanity in him. It's something he has had to learn.

That is not to say looking after two young monsters doesn't have its downfalls.

Nana frowns down at the dark stain on her couch and purses her lips. It's leather, so theoretically she should be able to clean up the blood and ichor, but it has resisted her efforts so far.

She will have to buy a new one, and somehow move the old one to the garbage without anyone asking about it.

She thinks about it for a second before coming to a decision.

"Tsuna?" she calls up the stairs, still holding her cleaning supplies. There's a mysterious thump, and then the sound of her son's staggering gait.

"Yeah?" he says, appearing on the top steps. Nana smiles tensely up at him.

"Could you do me a favour and cut up the old couch while I go buy a new one? We'll have to recycle it," she says, nodding to the living room.

Tsuna blinks and hums.

"Right now?" he asks, scratching at his cheek. Nana nods.

"Sure," he says, walking down the steps. From behind him the dark form of Hibari hovers.

"Thank you, there's some rice and meat in the fridge if you get hungry. I should be back in a few hours," she kisses the top of his head and goes to put the cleaning supplies away.

—

Tsuna stares at the beige couch and hums. There's a dark stain, almost black, smudged over the seats and backrest, and it seems to have only grown since Hibari first laid on it.

"Our couch might be haunted," he tells Hibari, who stares at him as if he just proclaimed that wolves were vegetarian.

"Well, not haunted as in haunted, haunted. But like, here," he points to where the shadows under the leather squirms, "probably the leftover memories of that man whose heart I fed you."

Hibari scowls.

"Don't worry! He's not actually there, it's only an impression," Tsuna soothes, before kneeling and inspecting the shade more closely.

"Hmm. I think I can work with this. I don't suppose you kept any of those skulls I gave you?" he asks, poking at it.

From behind him Hibari snorts with disgust, and Tsuna nods again with a chuckle.

"Of course not, well, I'm sure I can find something. Stay here and make sure he doesn't leave, will you?" he asks, already wandering away to search the house.

Hibari stares down at the slowly moving shadow until, satisfied, he watches it retreat further into the safety of the sofa in fright.

Tsuna doesn't take long to come back, holding in his hands a couple sheets of paper and some scissors.

"Here," he says, pushing some of the paper into Hibari's hands, "hold this."

Hibari blinks at the other boy and watches as he starts cutting away at the paper. At first it's not all that evident what he is making, crafts not being a subject he is very strong at, but soon enough a few misshapen paper dolls are spread on the floor.

Hibari makes a noise of understanding and starts handing Tsuna more paper.

Soon they have a small army of paper men, lined up hand to hand.

"There, that should do it," Tsuna says with a grin, pushing his bangs up from where they've flopped into his face. "Hmm, I should have gotten the salt at the same time."

He stretches out his shadow and snakes a piece of it down onto the floor. Hibari makes as startled noise as it slithers past him, and then glares at Tsuna.

The shadow creeps along until it's stretched out around them, creating a perfect circle. From underneath the sofa the shade looses a rolling growl, and Tsuna smirks at it.

"Ok! Now we can have our first magic lesson. You wanna do the honours?" he asks Hibari, who scowls at him in answer.

"What I actually mean is you need to do it, since you were the one to eat him." Tsuna shrugs, gesturing at the same time with his shadow.

"Why should I?" Hibari asks, narrowed eyes following him. Tsuna tsks.

"Well, the other option is to set the whole couch on fire, which could be fun. But this way you get a minion out of it," he says.

Hibari stares at the paper men for a second, before turning a considering eye towards the shadow under the sofa.

"I don't need a minion," he says, but picks up a few paper shapes anyways.

"Sure you do, everyone needs a minion. Think of it like, having someone do all the pesky things you don't want to while you can, I don't know, beat up some more yakuza instead." Tsuna laughs, tugging Hibari's hand out so it's hovering over the rest of the paper cut-outs.

"Here, it's really simple, I just need to prick you a little like this—" he tenses as Tsuna nicks his finger with a thin sliver of shadow and glares down at the other boy, "—aaaaand voila."

The blood hisses as it touches the paper, and an answering hiss comes from the couch, the shadow twisting and shivering. There's a groan from the leather before with a snap, the shade goes bounding out of its hiding spot and crashes into the smoking paper.

Tsuna gets one good look at the shadow and yelps.

"Oh that's not good," he says, watching the paper writhe. Hibari, reclaiming his hand, glares at the other boy.

"What?" he hisses, inching a little ways back from the still-smoking paper.

"Well, I thought it was going to be the spirit of that man I killed, but um, unless he de-aged in death I don't think that was it," he says with a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his head.

The paper gives one last writhing squirm, before bursting into flames.

Both boys flinch back. Bits of burning paper go swirling into the air, before clumping into one hovering piece. It stretches and oozes into the air, still slightly burning, before a shape emerges.

Tsuna hums.

"Yeah, that does not look like the man I killed at all."

Hibari clenches his fist and glares at the other boy, who just shrugs.

In front of them, the paper starts taking on colour. Black stringy hair, the pale but healthy tone of skin, what looks like a blue yukata.

"Well, I guess it's possible your awakening called to the restless spirits in the area, and this one just happened to get stuck in the blood binding. Oops?" Tsuna says nonchalantly, still watching the morphing form take shape.

Features slowly define themselves, and he is able to get a better read on the spirit. Japanese, and young, although quite a few years older then Tsuna and Hibari. Wearing what looks to be a sword of some kind at his hip.

Hibari makes a noise of interest at the sight of the weapon, and Tsuna has to hide a smile in his sleeve.

The last thing to form is the face, and soon they are looking at a finished spirit doll.

Who blinks newly formed eyes and then, attention closing immediately onto Hibari, kneels down with a fist over his heart.

"My lord."

Both boys blink at him, before Tsuna slowly grins.

"See! Minions!" he says, triumphant. They must have lucked out, since it looks like whoever the ghost was; he kept his memories of being subservient. The blood binding only does so much, not that he was going to tell Hibari that.

The plan was more to let him kill the ghost once it had a physical form, but that doesn't look like it will be needed.

Hibari scowls at him. The ghost, for that's what he is, stays kneeling, but there's a hesitance to him now. Hibari turns his scowl to him.

"Stand up," he barks, eyes narrowed. The ghost does, rising gracefully but with stuttering joints. Tsuna knows the feeling; physical bodies are hard to get used to.

"My lord?" he asks, straightening with his arms clasped in front. He looks attentive to a fault, and Tsuna can see how it disconcerts his friend.

"Hibari. Call me Hibari." Narrowed eyes, and there's a twitch in his fingers.

Tsuna's a little jealous. It took an actually fight to get Hibari's name the first time.

"Hibari-sama," the ghost says, bowing.

Hibari twitches violently. Tsuna covers a laugh with his sleeve.

"A retainer spirit I assume? Based off of the memories of a loyal subordinate?" Tsuna muses.

"I stayed in this plane of living for as long as my master had living descendants. When the last of them also died, I found I had forgotten how to pass on. My sole desire is to find a worthy master again." The ghost nods.

"That will have to do for now, I suppose. My name is Tsuna, and I'm sorry about the whole trapping you in a false body thing. Thought you were someone else," Tsuna says with a grin.

The ghost bows again. Tsuna is starting to have an inkling about how old he is.

"Kusakabe Tetsuya, at your service. The man you killed was carrying my previous vessel, so I am thankful for the chance to claim a more suitable host," he says, patting his short sword.

Tsuna blinks.

"I don't recall seeing a sword on him," he muses, and gets a wry look in answer.

"It was broken a long time ago. The metal had been melted down and used for a chain necklace," the ghost — Kusakabe says.

"You're a swordfighter?" Hibari asks, intent. Tsuna, looking at the clock, realises they only have a few more minutes before his mother is due to be back, and leaves them to it.

He picks up the couch with two shadow limbs and ignores the ghost's startled look, heading towards the kitchen where the ceramic floors will be easier to clean.

Before he exits completely, he can just make out Kusakabe replying.

"I was taught to use one yes, but I am much more skilled with hand-to-hand or small weapons, Hibari-sama. As a retainer, I had a variety of skills, but my previous master used me more for investigations and delegation."

—

Tsuna rips the couch apart with his shadows, keeping one ear on the conversation happening in the other room. So far, it doesn't sound like anything violent is going down, which is a nice change.

Maybe with a ghost to distract the other boy Tsuna won't have to go hunting as much. That would be nice.

The frame of the sofa splinters with a crack, showering the floor with wood shavings. He has to be careful to break it in such a way that the pieces would make sense to be recycled later, which means he's actually exerting more effort into not pulverising things then he is into breaking things.

The ghost is making him think a little, though. With Hibari's minion now in Tsuna's life, the amount of human versus non-human people he is close to is now unbalanced. Normally, when one takes on a host, a shadow can go a whole lifetime without finding any other remnant.

And Tsuna's found two. It makes him think that there might be more close by. That's how these things work after all, narrative law for supernatural forces dictate that if there is more than one there's more than a few.

Curiosity is one of the few human traits he didn't have to learn, and it is burning him right now.

—

Nana gets home to one more child than what she left. She pauses and takes in the sight of Hibari, the antisocial child that he is, staring intently at a straight-backed teen with an old-school yukata, who stands as soon as she enters.

"Tsu-kun?" she asks, putting away her purse. Her son's fluffy head peers around a corner.

"Welcome home!" she says with a grin, a smudge of sawdust on one cheek. She smiles at him.

"Who's this?" she watches as his grin widens until it's consuming his whole face, shark teeth looking smug in a too-wide jaw.

"This is Kusakabe-san. He's a ghost," he says.

Nana nods.

"A ghost?" she repeats slowly. She shouldn't even be surprised. "I see. Will he be staying with us or Hibari-kun?"

The teenager bows.

"I will stay with Hibari-sama, Sawada-san. Thank you for the hospitality," he says. His voice is deeper then she would have anticipated from someone who looks to be under sixteen.

There's a noise from Hibari that could be considered either an agreement or a growl of aggression. Nana firmly ignores it.

"He was haunting the sofa, mama," Tsuna pipes up, bouncing a little, and she can't help thinking that it's been awhile since she's seen him this excited.

The ghost blushes. Nana just shakes her head and smiles shakily. Of course he was haunting the couch, because bloodstains can't even stay bloodstains in her life.

"Were you able to cut it up at least?" she asks. Tsuna nods, a little sliver of shadow crawling up the wall behind him.

"I used up all the recycling bags though, so we'll need to get some more," he says. Because out of all of this, he is more concerned with recycling bags then about the ghost that was haunting their sofa.

Nana just shakes her head.

"Well, I'll go get some when I pick up the new couch later. In the meantime, I should make something to eat for us. Kusakabe-kun, do you know if — well, if you can eat?"

The boy blinks at her in surprise, before frowning.

"Never mind, I suppose we'll find out," she says, heading into the kitchen. The boys follow her.

—

Tetsuya bows goodbye to the young master of the Sawada household and swiftly follows his new lord through the streets. He's wearing new clothing, of the style that seems to be popular now, and everything feels new and off-balance.

Actually feeling things is so odd. He had forgotten what it was like. Something as mundane as the crunch of stone beneath his feet feels bizarre.

He doesn't have a lot of time to familiarise himself with the new body, nor his surroundings, because his small lord seems hellbent on his destination, wherever that is.

He's not all too sure how he feels about Hibari-sama. He is honour-bound to follow him for freeing him from death, but the child is very different from his past experience with lords. Young of course, but it is immediately apparent that the small form holds a wellspring of aggression and skill. Similar, perhaps, to the old war generals his uncle would sometimes visit, but nothing like a noble. Not anywhere near like the serene calm of his previous master.

His old lord, Uesugi-sama, was a man more disposed to the war room then he was to the battlefield.

Not that Tetsuya can actually recall any battlefields, although there must have been.

He brings his hand up and rubs at his temples. The thought of forgetting his past would ordinarily scare him out of his mind, but he can't bring up those emotions right now. Not when the world seems so new and he is still reeling from the effects of being alive again.

After centuries stuck in dusty attics and dark pockets, seeing the world again trumps everything else.

He blinks away his thoughts when they abruptly come to a stop. They've arrived at what looks like a government building of some kind, although it looks rundown and vandalised. His young lord glances at him and then strides confidently into the open gates.

Tetsuya hurries to catch up, trying not to pay too much attention to the many eyes following their route. They stride through the entrance, door opening with a bang, glass shards falling from the already broken frame.

"Yo kid! What do you think you're doing here, huh?" a voice calls out, and Tetsuya glances at his lord at the same time that his hand drops down to his wakizashi, wanting not for the first time, access to something a little less cumbersome. He's always done better with knives.

"This is our turf, yeah? Scram," the voice ends up belonging to a man not that much older than Tetsuya's physical age, with metal hanging off his face and a leer on his lips. A few other men his age sit crouched next to him.

Tetsuya's nose wrinkles.

"Not anymore," Hibari-sama says, stalking forward. The men laugh.

"Huuuuuh? Wassat? You gonna try and fight us for it or something, huh? You're like five, I'm not into child abuse," the first man says, contradicting his words by slipping out some metal knucklebusters. Hibari-sama ignores him.

Tetsuya, starting to understand where this is going, unsheathes his sword.

The men stir.

In response to the movement, Hibari-sama snaps up and knocks his teeth out with one reversed metal baton. Tetsuya raises an eyebrow and wades into the fray.

Just his luck to find himself a lord who takes the adage of 'trial by fire' seriously.

—

Tetsuya tries not to kill anyone, mostly because his lord seems to be struggling with that himself. A few times the younger boy has had to stop in the middle of battle and bite down on his hand, leaving the fighting to Tetsuya.

The smell of copper is sharp in the air, and it mixes in with shouts and screams until he can barely keep track of who is who. In the midst of it all, his lord is a small dark blur, stumbling with inexperience but ferocious enough that it doesn't matter.

The frenzy of fighting is familiar to him, even if the setting isn't. At one point, in the middle of bashing someone's face back with the pommel of his sword, he looks up to see a dirty face peering out from above the staircase with a black square object in it's hand. When the kid sees him they squeak and disappear around up a few more steps. He doesn't have time to ponder it, since a snarled curse warns him just in time to block a stab aimed for his liver. He goes back to the fight.

A slash to the ankles brings screaming down another man, who isn't fast enough to dodge the ensuing knee to the face. He dodges to the left when a knife flashes in the corner of his eyes, bringing him closer to his lord. The man with the knife falters as his opponents switch and he comes face to face with Hibari-sama's tonfas.

The swathe of destruction left behind the younger boy is impressive, but it's also readily apparent that he is tiring. Perhaps, Tetsuya thinks, it is because he is still not used to his own power. He wonders why they didn't bring the shadow creature.

"Fuck, who are these kids?" one of the men in the crowd shouts. Tetsuya smirks.

The calibre of thugs is such that it doesn't take a lot to finish them off, but just as soon as one group goes down another joins the fray. As more and more people pop up, Tetsuya can't help but feel some trepidation. Just how many thugs are there in the area?

"Hibari-sama—" Tetsuya starts to entreat, but his lord only narrows his eyes in Tetsuya's direction and smashes someone's knee in with an elbow.

 _Message received_ , Tetsuya wryly acknowledges, lunging forward and spearing a youth with a club in the shoulder. Screams burst out again, and he jerks his sword back before the seizing muscles can trap it.

"Do you at least have a plan?" he asks, dodging swinging fists. There's a stinging cut along his cheek, and a throbbing in his wrist he doesn't remember getting. He shuffles closer to Hibari-sama, until they are facing back to back, and lets the adrenaline wash away the pain.

He's not used to being a shield, doesn't even have all that much experience in being a sword, but he gets the feeling that isn't what his lord is looking for here anyways. Hibari-sama is more suited to a loner style of fighting, and Tetsuya knows better than to get in the way.

Still, as the fight starts winding down and his young lord starts tiring even more, he can't help but wish that he would be more inclined towards coming up with a plan before entering a den of thugs.

Finally, there are only a few more men groaning on the floor, the rest having escaped in the chaos, and the original man. His hands are broken, probably shattered, and he cradles them to his chest while great gasping breaths whistle through his bloody teeth.

"Ok! Shitsake! You can have it, fuck. What the fuck are you even," the man says, shuffling back on bent legs.

Hibari-sama ignores him, instead bending down to pick up another one of those black boxes, rifling through an unconscious lump's pockets to do so.

"Here," he says, thrusting the item into Tetsuya's arms, "call an ambulance for the herbivores."

Tetsuya cradles the box and blinks at his lord.

"An ambulance, Hibari-sama?" he asks, turning it around. His lord scoffs and starts walking away.

Tetsuya hums in thought, and then leans down to look what used to be the territory's boss in the eye.

"How do I go about calling an ambulance, thug-san?" he asks, ignoring the man's pathetic attempt at crawling away.

"Fuck man, what are you, stupid?—FUCK!" A crunch as Tetsuya steps on the man's already crushed hand.

"Hmm, that's not what I asked, now was it, thug-san," Tetsuya says, grinding his heel in.

"Stop! It's—It's 119. Call 119," the man whimpers, and Tetsuya lifts his foot to inspect the device. He has a vague understanding of telephones, mostly because a few of the houses he haunted while in sword form had them, but this small box doesn't look like what he is used to in that respect.

"Shit, just. Look, flip it open," the man instructs, "there should be a little phone button, the green one. Press it and then punch in 119."

Tetsuya does so, but has to stop when he opens only to find that he can't read whatever symbols are written on it. Numbers, he figures, but not written in any character he recognises.

"Where's 119?" he asks, dangling the phone in front of his victim's face. The man looks confused under the pain, blinking wide eyes.

"What? You mean—Fuck, I don't even care anymore. First button twice and then the last one in the middle," he says, before mumbling, "How stupid do you have to be to not know how to read numbers?"

Tetsuya hums, before slowly pressing the indicated buttons. He startles when it starts vibrating in his hands, and blinks at the moving screen. There's the sound of static, before a voice calls out on the other end.

He drops the phone. Hibari-sama told him to call, not to talk to whoever was on the other side, so he considers himself done here.

Besides, he already feels the fading that signifies he's too far away from his lord, a wavering in physicality.

Before he disappears completely, he straightens up and gives the man on the ground a little bow.

"Thank you."


	10. Chapter 10

Hibari finds Tsuna for their afternoon spar and tells him he's found a suitable home base. Tsuna wasn't aware they needed one, but it makes sense that the other boy's instincts told him to find a place that he could both defend and be safe in.

Carnivores, really.

Hibari's new minion seems to be settling in well enough, at least, so that's one less thing on his mind.

"Hmm, I think this used to be a school," Tsuna says, inspecting the broken glass that makes up the front door of their new base.

"School?" Tetsuya asks, but in a way that makes it seem like he's trying to remember details and not that he doesn't know what it is.

"Probably an old high school," Tsuna agrees, brushing off his knees. He sends a thin line of shadow around the old building, searching for any other living—or dead—presences.

"Do you have a plan, at least?" Tsuna asks Hibari, who's hanging back and watching them. The young monster nods.

"Hunting grounds," Hibari says, and then doesn't elaborate. Tsuna snorts.

"This is because I told you last week that I wouldn't be going to junior high with you, isn't it? What happened to making the school your hunting grounds?" he asks.

Hibari glares at him, dark eyes narrow and intense.

"The herbivores are too weak. They aren't a true hunt, I need—" a clenched fist, "—more."

Tsuna nods, plans already forming. No doubt the vampire (or zombie, or demon, or whatever the right nomenclature really is) will end up forming a hunt at school anyways, because he spends the most time there and he has a tendency towards possessiveness, but this way they should be able to siphon some off his more dangerous instincts better. And if that means beating up yakuza and thugs in the evenings, well, Tsuna won't mind. He's always in the mood for a snack.

"Well then, Tetsuya-kun, I leave the details in your hands," Tsuna says with a smile, turning to the other boy, who blinks at him in confusion but bows anyways.

"We'll need to get this place in tip-top shape for it to be a proper secret hideaway, after all," he continues, straightening from his crouch.

"Of course, Sawada-san," Tetsuya says, "I have experience in the managing and supplying of a household already."

"Please, call me Tsuna. We'll be seeing a lot of each other from here on out after all," Tsuna says with a grin.

Next, to find Hibari some more minions to deal with the more annoying aspects of managing a territory. Tsuna himself has never had the inclination towards territory or a hunting grounds—his species isn't geared towards it—but he does feel a need now that Hibari is able to control at least some of his instincts to find a minion of his own.

Hibari is a good friend, or at least he likes to think so, and Tetsuya seems like a dependable spirit, but now that there's three of them Tsuna can't help feel unbalanced. There's a feeling in the back of his mouth that keeps trying to tell him something.

Tsuna licks his fangs and hums in thought.

It feels like magic.

—

It is only as he's on his way back home, alone, that he remembers another project that got side-tracked with the arrival of Hibari and his appetite.

Those men were obviously after him for some reason, and it wasn't because of his shadow. More importantly, they were after him because of his father. A father who still hasn't called back or sent word after they told him about the men after him.

And more than that, a father that Tsuna distinctly remembers having a fire similar to his own. The few times he's seen the man his human body was too young to really notice it, but the larger self inside him is constantly aware even when his body isn't. So he remembers the scruffy man with blond hair, a steady flame of orange near his heart. The exact same colour as Tsuna's own, which is strange. Strange because it was one of those colours he doesn't see often in the other humans auras, and he thought it was because of his own supernatural nature. His father is human though. Now that he has time to think about that, it feels a little suspicious.

Of course, he still hasn't been able to coax his own fire into working with him, although it feels warmer after the ordeal with Hibari. It seems to be a lot more sociable than he is, becoming restless if he isn't with the other boy.

He enters the house, feels the muted presence of his mother and tracks it into the living room. A brand new black leather couch meets him.

"Oh, welcome home Tsu-kun," his mother says with a tired smile that he returns. He knows she's had a tough time living with him, but he also knows she can handle it. It's her price for calling him anyway.

"I'm home," he says, about to walk into the kitchen to get towards working on his homework due Monday, when a thought has him stopping.

The fires are no doubt a human magic, more than likely the same magic that lets them make contracts with the shadows in the first place. As such Tsuna would have a disadvantage in using them, because he's both not human and because he has magic of his own. But Nana is human, and has already tapped into her own power inadvertently to call him up.

"Mama?"

"Hmm, yes Tsu-kun?" Nana hums distractedly as she nudges the couch a little more into position.

"How were you able to call me up, the day this body died?" he asks, turning around. His mother startles, blinking wide eyes at him.

"I don't—I mean, shouldn't you know?" she asks shakily. Tsuna shakes his head.

"I mean, yes. I know how it works for shadows, the contract in blood. But you were calling us even before this body's death. Somehow you were able to, I don't know how to explain it." He huffs.

His mother looks shaken, and she sits down on the new couch slightly trembling. They don't talk about his true nature very often, don't talk about the fact that whoever Tsunayoshi would have been is dead. That Tsuna might have his skin but he's only outwardly her son.

He hums in thought.

"I've noticed, since being in this body, that humans have this power under their skin. It isn't from the shadows, seems to be connected to their bodies in a way that makes me think it's unique to their species. I think it's what make them able to call us up," he says slowly, before taking a seat besides her.

"And you think that—that I used this?" she asks, rubbing her arms.

Tsuna smiles wryly and and takes one of her hands, cradling it in his much smaller fingers.

"I suspect so. And that you can use it again, for something besides calling up the shadows."

Nana shakes her head, but doesn't actually dispute him. Tsuna doesn't lie, isn't really human enough to think to, and she can't help but believe him. She's not sure how she feels about the idea of being magic, of having magic, but really, in the larger scale of things it's not the weirdest thing she's heard.

Her son is a monster, his friends too. She's had to deal with bloodstains and haunted furniture, moving shadows and threatening whispers in her sleep.

She's done all this thinking she was the normal one; the eye of the storm.

She still doesn't understand what lies under her son's skin.

"What does that mean?" she finally asks, after the silence stretches and her son still doesn't let go of her hand.

Tsuna smiles.

"I once knew men who could see into the dark places of the universe and talk to the long-dead. I walked with shamans and prophets when the birth of religion was still a long, drawn-out fever dream. This is my first time actually being—" here he looks down at their clasped hands, "—part of humanity. It's a coming of age, sort of. As shadows, we cannot change ourselves on our own. We must experience the world through another's skin."

He looks up at her, eyes blazing.

"I should know all there is to humanity, despite only just experiencing it. I watched the cosmos being born. I have swum in stardust. That there is magic that I do not know? That means—everything."

Nana swallows, the intensity of his speech making something thrum inside her. She knew he was old, knew that the beings that stalk the shadows and watch her with lazy eyes in the nighttime were greater than she could ever understand. And yet, she hasn't connected that with her son before.

Somehow he is still just that, her son.

"What do you need me to do?" she finally asks, as the fire in his eyes banks back down to it's usual amber.

Tsuna finally leans back, letting go of her hand. His grin slips into something a little more natural, a little less monstrous. She almost forgets for a second what he is, in the fading afternoon light. His shadow is still and soft behind him.

"We need to figure out how it works, what it does. I don't think I'll be able to do it on my own, considering my own nature. But you, you already have part of it unlocked and it shouldn't take all that much more to open it up more. And then, well, you'll be magic," he says.

Nana sighs. She's not sure if she wants to be magic. Then again, she's not sure she can afford not to be, considering the things Tsuna gets into.

"Ok."

—

Basil touches down in Namimori with the clothes on his back and an address written in cramped handwriting in his pocket. He's nervous, too young to be doing missions on his own and yet standing there, backup an ocean away.

He feels awkward, unsure. He's worried about meeting his boss's wife, the one he talks about all the time, the one he loves so much. He's worried that he'll do something, that she won't like him, and then his boss will be angry at him.

Or worse, disappointed.

He eventually forces himself out into the warm air of the city and flags down a taxi. He's lucky he has a Vongola-sanctioned account, and that he doesn't have to worry about paying. He didn't really get enough time to prepare anything else.

Iemitsu, perhaps out of forgetfulness or out of some desire to teach him something, gave him only enough time to get to the airport and on his flight. He's not even sure if this is a Vongola mission, considering the amount of secrecy involved, not involving any other members or crews.

Iemitsu is pretty protective of his family of course. There's even rumours that the Ninth visited once to make sure security was in place.

Basil is so nervous he doesn't even make small talk with the driver, instead spending the drive on hyper alert to his surroundings, looking for threats. He's not sure if he would even be able to find one, considering he hasn't completed his training yet, but he tries anyways.

He arrives at the Sawada household twenty minutes later and has to smooth down his suit anxiously at the sight of the cozy house.

Here goes nothing.

—

Nana and Tsuna are interrupted by the front door buzzing, and both of them turn to it inquisitively. They can just hear a car drive away.

"I'll get it," Nana says, standing.

She walks to the entryway and peers into the peep hole. A young blond boy stands on her front steps in a wrinkled suit. He looks like he's been fidgeting, a nervous expression on his face. Nana frowns and opens the door.

"Yes?" she asks, after the boy's eyes snap towards her.

"Sawada-san? Your husband sent me to look into the reports of suspicious activity in the neighbourhood. Please, call me Basil," he says, bowing low enough she's afraid he's going to hit her knees.

Nana blinks at the boy, who can't be older than twelve, and opens the door some more.

"You better come in," she says, turning back around, beckoning him to follow her. Part of her feels like she might be signing his death warrant as she does. He's so young. Too young to be caught in between a house of monsters and whatever her husband is up to.

Another part of her feels bitter that Iemitsu would send a child, not even a teenager, and not come himself. Does he truly believe that sort of thing is normal? Then again, her view on normality has changed so much since Tsuna was born. Things that she would have brushed off are only highlighted now that she sees the true strangeness of the world.

"Tsu-kun, one of Papa's colleagues is here about the strange men," she says as she waits for the boy to slip off his shoes. Tsuna's fluffy head pops around the corner and he stares intently at the boy.

"Oh no, I'm not a colleague!" Basil hurries to wave off, "I am a simple intern in the company, no where near Iemitsu-dono's level."

Both Sawadas stare at him some more. Nana isn't sure if it's a miscommunication on the foreigner's part or something her husband legitimately makes the boy call him. She wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter.

"Well, it was nice of him to send someone anyways, even though I'm sure it's nothing," she finally replies, knowing that to say otherwise would be out of character. Although who knows if the boy knows enough to realise that.

"I'll get the tea ready," Tsuna pipes up, disappearing back into the kitchen. Nana beacons the boy—Basil, along as she joins him.

As she does she keeps an eye on the shadows in the house. Sometimes you can tell Tsuna's emotional state just by how off they look, how they will move in the corner of your eye if you pay attention.

Today they seem calm, but it's not a perfect system and she feels anxious anyways. It's just as likely that Tsuna will adopt the boy as he will eat him, after all. Oh, Tsuna and Hibari think they're being subtle with their nighttime activities, but she's able to put together the clues when they're plastered on the clothing she washes and the inside of the fridge holds more meat than she buys.

At least it seems to have ebbed ever since Tetsuya joined the picture, but there are still moments when the enormity of what she harbours under her roof chokes her up. When bile rises unwanted.

They take a seat at the table and she watches her son pretend to be engrossed in tea making. She can't help remember the half-hearted wish she had that the next adopted child be a girl. Just for that she silently prays that Tsuna doesn't end up fond of this Basil. Already tied to her husband and his business, she justifies the desire with the knowledge that it would be a bad idea.

"So these men you've seen, Sawada-san?" Basil says, once all of them are sitting and staring at each other.

"Well," she murmurs, eyes falling to her cup. She's been drinking so much tea ever since her son got old enough to fall in love with the ritual of making it. There's something comforting about it, if she ignores where he gets some of the leaves.

"It seems so silly now, but there's been a few of them asking around. Not for me, I don't think, but for Tsuna. I thought at first that they were from his work, you know? They seemed like the type."

Basil's eyes are sharp, despite his age.

"Have they done anything?" he asks, fiddling with his sleeve.

Tsuna shakes his head. Nana lets him take the rest of the conversation, grateful to no longer have to lie. The men her son killed were not good men, but she still would rather not think on them at all. This whole affair is making her uncomfortable.

"One of them tried grabbing my arm after school but my friend stopped him," Tsuna says, acting bashful. Nana hides an ironic smile in her tea. Hibari certainly did more than stop him, although she still doesn't know the full details. Besides the first few from the alley, she knows of two more incidents where men in suits tried to corner the boys. It never goes well for the men in question.

"That certainly doesn't sound like any of our men," Basil says emphatically. He looks insulted by the idea of it.

"I'll take a look around and make sure everything is ok. I'm sure Iemitsu-dono would want you to be as safe as possible."

"I'm sure," Nana mutters, lifting her cup to her lips. Safe from what? She's the safest she's ever been, with a monster as a son and miles of blood running down her drain.

Iemitsu knows nothing. Not about safety, and not about family.

—

Tetsuya has adapted to this new age as much as he can, following his master around. It helps that the empty house is similar enough to ones he's taken care of in the past and that Hibari's lack of social grace disguises his own.

The management of the school is more difficult.

Not only keeping out the rabble, which Hibari does with pleasure, but fixing up the building and installing defences. His master's fortune is large, and the boy seems content with simply buying whatever he feels the most suitable, but Tetsuya is used to careful budgeting. He spends quite a few nights pouring over sheets and sheets of finances and invoices and inventory lists.

It gets to the point where he starts eyeing the more intelligent of the thugs they keep chasing out. Some of them seem to be angling for recruitment, hanging on the outskirts of Hibari's patience and showing off when they think they can get away with it.

He could use a few under-servants of his own, but he's still unsure enough of his Master to hesitate with suggesting it. Hibari is the type to disdain interaction with anyone outside of his very small social circle. Tetsuya doesn't even think he likes Tsunayoshi-san all that much, and the boy saved his life.

A few weeks after his awakening he is gifted with a pair of slim tanto, and they see their fair share of action, although he tries to stick to hand-to-hand when he can get away with it. The sight of blood still sends Hibari into a rage, and they really shouldn't be adding to the body count.

Which is also why when Tsunayoshi-san calls to say a messenger from his father is visiting, he makes sure to schedule a series of inspections for his Master so they don't meet. It would ruin the act they're putting on if they have to send the boy back in a body bag.

It's a good thing that he doesn't mind following his Master around while the boy sets about cleaning up his territory. It's not that much different than some of his past duties, especially concerning rival families and clans, even if the motivations are skewed.

Hibari wants a territory to defend because it soothes the supernatural instincts he's still struggling with. His past masters wanted territory for power and protection.

He watches his Master test the weight of his new tonfas on the skulls of a few gang members that were skulking too close to said territory and sighs. He really needs to find some subordinates to make his job easier.

He can't even enjoy the sight with the knowledge of just how much paperwork he has left back at the house.

—

Haru is a strange girl, everyone agrees. Cheerful to a fault but with a sharp temper, she'd almost seem normal if it weren't for her horrible luck. It seems any tragedy in a ten kilometer radius can be linked to her in some way, to the point where at school people start joking that she's cursed.

It's not so much of a joke when she's stuck in the police station, again, because someone died in front of her, again.

A lesser girl might be broken by the amount of broken bodies she's seen, but Haru is special. And very good at purposefully forgetting traumatising events. Most times she doesn't even realise how odd her life is, because she suppresses so much of it.

Robberies? Forgotten. Murders? Deleted. Suicide? Never happened. Collapsed buildings? Something you only see on TV.

When she can't get away with ignoring the events completely, when they are big or strange enough that they stick even in her mind, she goes about dressing them up so that they taste better to her thoughts. Things that would make her cry are turned into things that make her laugh instead. Muggers become party entertainers, dead bodies become actors, the strange and inexplicable monster living a block from her who wanders the night in bloody clothing is simply a bored boy who doesn't do his laundry enough.

Sometimes she thinks about chastising him, with the rate he seems to go through clothing. Why, every other day she'll see him with another wrecked shirt, red stains visible even from a distance.

Sometimes she can see him fighting with a dark haired boy in the park, when no one else is there. They seem like friends, of a sort, even if only one of them ever laughs.

Watching them is something she ends up doing late at night when she can't sleep. She's gotten good at shimmying down her window onto the branch of the tree outside and walking the few blocks to either the abandoned school yard or the park. Sometimes they aren't there, and so she'll spend a little while exploring.

The nights where her nightmares are especially bad, when her brain can't delete the bad memories or she can't dress them up, she'll even think about joining them.

They look like they're having fun, and it's been a long time since anyone willingly played with her.

Maybe someday she will. She has a feeling she's not ready yet.

—

The locals know something is going on, of course. Not only the sudden influx of foreign men and weapons but the sudden influx of bodies too. Some are talking about some sort of covert war being fought on their soil, Italian and Japanese dying alike.

Those who pay attention know differently. The yakuza die do so randomly, without context, but the mafia die systematically. They don't live more than a week before some horrible fate befalls them.

And then way they die too, more gruesome than even veteran criminals can handle.

Something is going on. Someone is responsible. Whispers of monsters and oni and curses filter from gambling hall to bar to love motel. It's hushed conversation outside warehouses and nervous chatter with corrupt cops because at the end of the day, even the lowest man fears what he does not understand.

It's gotten bad enough that clans from out of town have been making vague remarks, checking for weakness.

And all that's before Hibari the younger blazed into power. The older crowd remembers his parents, and pay close attention to his progress with the petty gangs.

They know the damage a Hibari can do. It would be easy, some murmur, to get rid of him now. Before he becomes a legend, or a rival clan can snatch him up. Before his family comes back.

The smarter ones are already making contingency plans. The really smart ones start packing: when the devil comes to town you don't bother trying to deal with him. Not if you want to make it out alive.


End file.
